Reviews

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  ★★★★ review by davidehrlich on Letterboxd

  I'VE BURIED TOO MANY BATMEN, MISTER BRUCE.

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  ★★★½ review by Filmspotting on Letterboxd

  All I know is I've watched the 'Michael Parkinson interview' five times and I laughed harder each time.

  "We'll come back to you, Steve, and now Michael Bublé..."

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  ★★★★ review by Eli Hayes on Letterboxd

  This may be an unpopular opinion, but I actually think that I prefer this to The Trip. The serious aspects are more effective/less awkward, the cinematography and music are absolutely gorgeous, and above all else, this one was straight-up funnier. The Batman & Bane scene toward the beginning was the hardest I've laughed in a theater all year; I'm pretty sure I snorted and embarrassed my friends. Also accidentally spat my soda out at another point during the film. Undignified signs of damn good comedy.

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  ★★★★ review by davidehrlich on Letterboxd

  “Always laugh when you can. It is cheap medicine” – Lord Byron

  The death of Robin Williams–who earlier this week took his own life after a decades-long battle with severe depression–has refocused our collective attention on the tragicomic irony of the world’s Pagliaccis, those clowns who jump on the darkness like it’s a live grenade so that the rest of us can live in the light. Of course, this is not to say that all comedians are desperately staving off suicide, but simply–to borrow the title of a hilarious episode of The Simpsons–that there’s always at least a little something to see behind the laughter.

  In that light, The Trip to Italy might just be the film we need right now. If 22 Jump Street is still the year’s most insistently self-aware comedy sequel, The Trip to Italy is without question the most painfully so. It’s not just a brilliant piece of work that lucidly traces the thin divide between laughter and crying, it’s also a ruefully bittersweet reminder that the funniest things leave people in tears all the same.

  FULL REVIEW ON COMPLEX: www.complex.com/pop-culture/2014/08/trip-to-italy-review

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  ★★★★ review by Sam Van Hallgren on Letterboxd

  Expert sequel-ing. Self aware, and yet avoids trying to top the pleasures of the original. And if not funnier than the first at least as funny, while also digging a little deeper into Brydon and Coogan's anxieties. A day later, I'm still laughing about kumquat. And Brydon's Man in the Box making an appearance in Pompeii was not only hilarious, its borderline inappropriateness - along with Coogan's response to it - actually made the thousands year-old tragedy of the place hit home in a way that surprised me. And the look on Brydon's face after he books the big movie gig told me more about the melancholy of the movie business than anything this side of (the oft mentioned) Fellini.

  Currently streaming via Netflix.

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